President Obama began the administration’s rejoinder in his weekly radio address Saturday, insisting he would not sign a healthcare bill that added to the federal deficit. Two of his top healthcare lieutenants – Kathleen Sebelius and Peter Orszag – continued the effort on Sunday talk shows.

The gist: Be patient. Many twists and turns lie ahead.

Trying to predict the shape and success of a potential healthcare-reform bill now is like picking “who will win a marathon at mile 19” of the 26, said Mr. Orszag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

One plan passed by the House Ways and Means Committee Friday levies taxes on the rich to pay for broader healthcare. The Senate Finance Committee has gone back to the drawing board after the CBO said its plan would cost $1.6 trillion. The Senate health committee has passed its own bill, without a firm plan for how to pay for it.

Rebuffing calls for Mr. Obama to take the process by the scruff of the neck – making his detailed preferences clear – Orszag said: “This is the legislative process. This is what normally happens.”

But prefacing many of her comments with “the good news is,” she suggested that even a flawed plan was a positive step forward. “The status quo cannot work. It is bankrupting the country,” she said.

Critics disagree. Also on “Meet the Press,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the Democrats’ plans intend to “scrap the entire healthcare system” rather than merely fixing it. By creating a government-run healthcare option, the government will undercut private healthcare, and “there will be no competition,” he said.

Obama has warned against this in the past, suggesting that lawmakers will have to be careful not to give a potential government-run option a blank check – allowing it an unfair competitive advantage against private competitors. But, like much of the rest of the healthcare plan, this remains yet to be worked out.

Obama wants a bill on his desk before Congress goes on its August recess in two weeks – an ambitious request. Even without such deadlines, the path ahead will be hard, Orszag said: “None of this is easy. There’s a reason this has not happened in the past 50 years."

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